City Beat

Trouble in Paradiso

A crowd of 500 teens at the Paradiso rattles some nerves.

Memphis police are trying to figure out why an unusually big crowd
of teenagers gathered at Malco's Paradiso movie theater in East Memphis
Saturday night, causing a swarm of police cars to respond and rattling
patrons and neighbors.

The incident has prompted Malco to change its policy toward underage
teens being dropped off by their parents. They will no longer be
allowed in the building.

Police spokesman Karen Rudolph said an initial report that three
squad cars responded was wrong. In fact, 23 cars responded, including
every available car in three substations, plus special units. She said
the crowd in the parking lot numbered at least 500 people between 7 and
10 p.m., when police began closing entrances on Mendenhall, Sanderlin,
and Poplar Avenue.

The Paradiso is a something-for-everyone multiplex that shares the
parking lots west of Clark Tower with Houston's, Ben and Jerry's, Whole
Foods, McAlister's Deli, and other popular businesses. The center is
common ground for different ages, races, high schools, and
neighborhoods and is especially popular with teenagers. Patrons are
accustomed to lines, traffic snarls, and crowds of kids hanging around
outside, but Saturday was different.

Rudolph said one possibility is that two horror movies showing that
night were sold out, leaving hundreds of teens with nothing to do and
time to kill. But Ann Forbis, who was there for a 7 p.m. movie, is
skeptical.

"It takes a lot to rattle my cage, but that rattled me big-time,"
she said. "We could not go out the exit door, the lobby was packed, and
there was an ocean of kids outside and cars cruising in the parking
lot. They were not in line and were not there to see a movie. If I had
been a parent trying to pick up my girls, I would have been
mortified."

As she and two friends walked to their car, they saw a group of
young men kneeling on the ground and thought that someone was hurt or
performing CPR. When they got closer, they saw "six or eight guys were
shooting dice."

Rumors began spreading Saturday night and Sunday. Cyndi Blair, who
lives in East Memphis, said people on her neighborhood watch have been
talking about a "fight club" outbreak. A man leaving the theater broke
up a fight between two girls that was being videotaped. He reported
that three security guards were "trying in vain" to tell people to
disperse. A police report that night says 10 teens were charged with
misconduct for fighting.

Jane Williams, an East Memphis resident, said there's a lot of buzz
among neighborhood groups.

"We are now being urged to e-mail Mayor Lowery to see if we can get
him to make a public statement and take action. What upsets many of us
is that incidents like this in the Paradiso and Ben and Jerry's area
have gone unreported for at least six weeks. This is dangerous."

Malco spokesman James Tashie said the crowd was drawn by a
promotional flyer sent out by a local disc jockey touting the R-rated
horror movies Halloween II and Final Destination.

Malco employees are instructed to card young people and deny them a
ticket if they are underage, but teens skirt the policy by having
someone else buy a ticket for them.

The flyer from "G. Webb & S.O.H.K." touts "Hanging With The
Stars Part 2" at Paradiso "08.29.09."

"We were aware of it [the promotional flyer] and beefed up our
security but had no idea it was going to bring in such a large number
of underage kids," Tashie said. "Parents are dropping kids off and they
are not old enough to go to the movie, so they are out there for two or
three hours with nowhere to go."

Malco executives have been meeting about the incident for two days.
They say they believe the Paradiso is drawing some of the rougher
segments of the crowd that went to the Muvico theater downtown in
Peabody Place before it closed. "We are going to hit [the situation]
with all the firepower we have, because our investment there is so
great," Tashie said. "We don't have car break-ins or muggings. The
perception is worse than the reality."